Birds, Bugs, and Butterflies, OH MY: October 2012

I went on my first Ghost Walk on Sunday, Oct. 21, 2012. It was a beautiful day and not one that I thought the ghosts would want. We started our tour at the Elks Club on Second St. I have been in there many times for the Elk Dances of the 1960's and 3 different class reunions. Little did I know of all the paranormal events. We were lead into the ball room....

Was a haunting effect with the beautiful stain glass windows and the remains of a party. Would we find ghosts here?

We passed by the beautiful Elk and descended into the basement.....This next picture has this green object in the picture....could this be a ghostly being?

Next we went to the First National Bank, which in now First Capital Music Hall.

I remember when it was a bank and was excited about going in....outside there are still reminders

The drop that changed banking to be able to make deposits when the bank was closed. We were told that we were going to visit the Federal Reserve Vault in the basement.

But the inside was changed there were a few things that reminded me of the old bank.....

The vault and safe deposit boxes.....

Then down the stairs to the basement.......

Notice the green object above his head! Were we being followed by a spirit or was my camera having issues?

Books, the way things were recorded back then..

The Vault door...

This is a picture of the tunnel that lead from the

bank to the drive-thru that once was part of the bank. This is the way money was moved from the bank to the drive-thru....

The paranormal investigators said there was activity in that hall way.

Next we headed to the Court House. I was really looking forward to visiting it.

Our beautiful Court House, which has been the center of justice since 1798, our guide told us. As we walked around it, I noticed the beauty you usually miss ...

It has so much detail on it.....

There is so much detail that I had never really looked at and was enjoying the beauty...but what is that dark spot near the top of the clock tower? I thought it is probably a pigeon....and forgot about it .....

This closer look shows the beauty.........but that dark spot kept nagging me...so I took a picture of it...

There it is!...not a pigeon but a Peregrine Falcon.....(and I bet you thought this blog wouldn't have any birds in it....LOL)

I had not ever paid much attention either to the doors.

They are very impressive......

View from other side.

I also didn't know that this was on the Main St. side of the Court House. The rest of the stones from the original court house were used to help build other buildings in the downtown area.

We walked around to the back passing the old jail and courtyard

The old Jail which is now the Archives.

The fountain.

Some interesting window detail on the Old Jail building....

Part of the old Iron fence.

We were lead into the court house and here are a few of my favorite parts...

First the chandelier and

The Great Seal of Ohio

Both very impressive and to the right the stair case to the second floor

We were headed to the Court Room.

The people were paranormal investigators who told us about the activity they had recorded and played some for us....Well by this time I was into the history and had forgot about the Ghosts!!!

The jury box...I had sat in once as a juror and the room thru the doors is where we went to deliberate.

Governor Tiffin

The scales of justice.

The gorgeous chandelier hanging from an amazing ceiling.

Our next stop was across the street at the Warner Hotel.

It is draped in a netting to prevent the pigeons and other birds from roosting.

This was under the second floor window and over the entrance...I had never noticed it before..

This staircase is the original...not much left of the original hotel.

This picture shows the lobby, the stairs is to the left. Where the columns are, it is now enclosed.

This is the narrow stairs we took down to the basement ....

This was a long hall way in the basement that we were told had been some paranormal activity here.

I thought this room scarier and notice on the

picture that there is that green spot again and the white in the middle....a ghost? or something on my lens? I don't know but how do I explain it...my other pictures don't have this.......you decide....

Next we headed to the Woodrow House on West Fourth St.

Here we found a wonderful character, dressed very handsomely, with cane and top hat.

He told us about the house and during his talk, the porch light flickered several times!

Had the spirits followed us?

This vine covered area shows some brick, so covered we couldn't tell what it was.

In the back yard a lovely Lady (or was she a spirit) told us the story of Tommy Woodrow who loved his cousin and wanted to marry her but she turned him down. He left town because of her refusals and would later return.

These openings were in the summer kitchen to let the heat out.

Somethings left from the past.

Here the initials "T.W." cut into the window sill in the summer kitchen. This was the Tommy Woodrow the Lady of the garden was telling us about...and this Tommy left town and when he returned to visit...He was using his name....

"Woodrow Wilson"

The last stop was the David Nickens Heritage Center and finding out about the underground railroad and other stories of the early days of the African Americans to the end of the Civil War.